Several members including myself witnesses the bird strike or at least the stains resulting from a bird strike on the tail camera of Air France's Alpha A380 yesterday during climb on flight AF1980 between CDG and Heathrow.

As a joke, since many on this and other related forums find Air France's aircraft exterior cleanliness record to be somewhat questionnable, I think it would be nice of members to report the cleanliness status of the tail camera as they fly the bird... - Oh! Sorry, my mistake! ...plane in the coming days, weeks, months, dare I mention years?

This will give us some idea about Air France's procedures on the matter.

Quoting brightcedars (Thread starter):As a joke, since many on this and other related forums find Air France's aircraft exterior cleanliness record to be somewhat questionnable, I think it would be nice of members to report the cleanliness status of the tail camera as they fly the bird... - Oh! Sorry, my mistake! ...plane in the coming days, weeks, months, dare I mention years?

Quoting EMBQA (Reply 3):Blood is very hard to get off once it dries. It takes more then just water

The best fluid available for cleaning birdstrikes? Saliva. I realize how weird I look as I'm out on the ramp spitting on a cloth and wiping bird blood off with it... but it's a LOT faster than any of the more... kosher alternatives.
Most solvents are either useless, or pull the paint off with the debris!

19th July was operated on CHARLIE not ALPHA as I hace photos and sat watching it before I boarded.

Are you sure about this because I flew on the A380 yesterday on AF1980 CDG-LHR 1025 on F-HPJC and on the tail camera in 51ABC there was NO blood stains on the shots from the tail camera neither were there on the main cabin screen...

so i don't know how that happened... as someone said are you sure it isn't a bug because it was not there on the way from Paris to London

Also I am guessing that your picture is from Sundays flight to London (you can clearly see T5 in the pic) as we landed on 27R yesterday not 27L and taxiied in round T3... Therefore I think there is confusion

That works if the goo is fresh enough...if it remains to be baked by the sun, it almost becomes part of the paint.

While on the subject...I once flew on a Delta 767 from JFK to EDDF and was amazed to see at sunrise that a pigeon POO that I saw on the wing the evening before...was still on the wing at 38,000 feet!...do pigeons eat epoxy for a diet? Much fibre...perhaps Boeing can make a N/G ship out of that!...A "7POO7"...

Quoting AOMlover (Reply 15):We're talking about AF1980 on the 18th of July. I suspect it was a birdstrike because the greyish stains on the left looked a bit like feathers, but it might have been a (big) bug strike.

the original post states that it was the 18th paris-london AND 19th london-paris if you re read it and if the poster is talking about it being on the same plane on the 19th which I believe was yesterday flying from LHR-CDG then yesterday the aircraft must of come in from Paris and was CHARLIE not alpha and there was no blood on any tail camera

Quoting brightcedars (Thread starter):Several members including myself witnesses the bird strike or at least the stains resulting from a bird strike on the tail camera of Air France's Alpha A380 yesterday during climb on flight AF1980 between CDG and Heathrow.

As a joke, since many on this and other related forums find Air France's aircraft exterior cleanliness record to be somewhat questionnable, I think it would be nice of members to report the cleanliness status of the tail camera as they fly the bird... - Oh! Sorry, my mistake! ...plane in the coming days, weeks, months, dare I mention years?

Hi brightcedars, nice to see you have already started that thread as suggested!

Quoting babybus (Reply 4):What a fantastic aircraft and it was nice to see it getting the international celebrity treatment it deserves.

Yes, it was a pleasure to fly on the A380 between CDG and LHR - but it would have been a much more enjoyable event without that nerve-wracking delay - at least for me.

For all those who are confused: There's simply a typo in brightcedars' post, he meant AF1981 on July 18.

Here are two pictures from the flight to LHR. This one was taken shortly after lift-off, only a few moments before the impact:

Unfortunately, due to turbulence I wasn't able to take a clear shot of the mysterious remains before the camera was switched off. The second shot was taken on approach shortly after the camera was switched on again: